"The Bridge" session.

Yesterday evening I went scouting for a place where to relax a bit and take some photos. As usual I was looking for some running water hence I opened the map and headed north, towards the Sierra of Madrid. Without knowing it I arrived to a place that I have already visited with my wife and daughter and recognized a road to the Jarama river, in an area not infested with bulls and hardwired fences.

The familiar noise of the running water raised my spirits. I put my high boots, grabbed the camera and tripod and took my way down to the valley, where the Jarama River was running. The photo session was OK but nothing spectacular, many different shots in places that somehow called my attention, but I was enjoying it. Every time I go out to take a picture I try to take it as a learning experience, not thinking about coming out with a winning image. Hence, whatever it comes, if is an improvement over previous tries is a goal achieved.

Towards the end of the day I discovered this sort of a "Bridge". Maybe is just a decorative log, even though I doubt that the elves of the woods spend their time re-decorating it just to make it look nicer. Anyway, I placed the tripod and started playing with exposure, white balance and obviously the flash.

The first shot I'm showing here is very orthodox. Cloudy white balance and nothing else. I like it but is probably average, it doesn't have any special "edge".

This is a B&W conversion of the same shot, maybe is a little bit more appealing because of that Black & White feeling yet is not a gigantic improvement. For a novel photographer like me is a nice image but I understand that it cannot compete on the major league

Here below is where I started playing with the camera configuration and my always available portable speed light, in this case a Nikon SB600

Here things started to get a tad odd. I changed to WB to tungsten and played with the SB600 speed light with two full CTO gels on it. The result is a tad exaggerated, the "Bridge" is cooked, way too hot. There's a lot of flash light spills on the ground as well.

Second attempt. Mellowing down on the gels and the amount of flash bursts. Changed the white balance in RAW to something closer to Fluorescent rather than Tungsten. The result has improved a bit but at least to me it still looks a bit too hot.

Third attempt. Maybe I'm wrong but I think this is the right way. There's no signs of the flash bursts on the ground and the color given to the "bridge" is more natural, yet still creates a contrast with the background. Unfortunately I couldn't paint with the flash further that half the log. For my next attempt I will try with a torch.

Funny enough I don't seem to be able to do landscapes kind of stuff without playing around with a strobe. Maybe one day I will grow up :-)

Flash among the ruins

Last week I was in Rome with the family and decided to go with the wife to Villa Adriana, a magnificent ruin near Tivoli, not far from the capital. The Villa was built as retirement place for the emperor Adriano, around II ac on an area of 300 hectares.

This is a magnificent place. Simply amazing, I'd say. I highly recommend anybody visiting Rome or Italy for that matter to spend an afternoon there.

Of course there's a lot of monuments, ruins, lakes, pools, gardens to see and photograph and during one of the least inspired days of my life I came up with some experimental shots. At least experimental for me. First I decided to use the flash as much as I could in order to handle a bit the major exposure difference I was finding from a spot to another. Then, for the same reason I placed a Graduated filter in front of the lens. Even though sometimes in a different manner. Tripod was left at home.

This first shot is an arch opening to a beautiful pool surrounded by columns. This is called the Teatro Marítimo, one of the most outstanding areas of the Villa.
As you can see from the first image I exposed for the sky with the result that the arch is dark and underexposed. Image straight from camera RAW

In this second image I took the SB600, put it off camera and fired it through the CLS. The arch is now properly exposed and the sky as well. There was people looking at me when I was taking these photos and they were pretty puzzled by the fact that I was lighting a piece of history with a small flashgun. To be honest with you I felt weird too, but driven by my experimental mood, I proceeded. The flash was handheld camera left and pointed upward with a slight angle, the maximum allowed by my arm's lenght. Image straight from camera RAW

As far as the Grad filters is concerned I used it in this other situation where the pavement was well lit and the roof too dark. In this image you can see the straight result, with no filter. Image straight from camera RAW

Then I placed the filter upside down, darkening the floor and correcting the exposure difference. Nothing to rave about, I think many photographers have been using this for ages but it was fun for me to try it and the results quite pleased me . Image straight from camera RAW.

Maybe I repeat myself but this is not the blog of a professional photographer. I know about shooting a guy with a fish but everything else is a learning curve for me and what I share with those who wants to read me, is simple day by day field work. I'm glad if I can help but is sure not my intention to "teach" anybody, in a straight manner.

How to complicate your life...

I do funny things. Not happy of taking the normal fishing pictures you can get using available daylight or with the help of a small flashgun, I decided to do it the my way, complicated. That is. During my last trip I brought with me 4 flashes. To be exact, 3 x SB600 and one Metz 54 recently bought as a bargain. To fire these lights I had with me 3 Skyport receivers and eventually one slave, that due to the strong light wouldn't work, or better say, would work whenever it wanted.

Now, to put together all these lights and make them work the way I wanted, I had to carry also my Manfrotto 001B light stands. The Manfrotto Justin Clamp. Another smaller clamp. Two small translucent umbrellas. Gaffer tape. You name it... All this stuff found place in my suitcase leaving home many lures I could have used for fishing, but this is what I choose, so much for the lures frenzy.


The idea was to put together two strobes on tne 001B stand, and one on the Justin Clamp as a backlit unit. The latter would not work properly because people holding a fish cannot be also asked to stand still in one very place and anyway, the distance between the rail where I would clamp the flash and the fisherman was always very short so the use of such light was pointless. I ended up lighting the subject from one side, and naturally backlit by the sun itself, using two flashes on the light stand but, at one point, in my mighty effort to overpower the sun I added a third flashgun to the stand ad went for the real thing.

Imagine what kind of chaos I have generated on board. Every time somebody had a decent fish I was removing the stand from the "safe" place, unfolding the plastic bag covering the flashes, turning all the darn receives and the flashes on, positioning the stand and the lights in order to have one pointing at the fisherman and the other at the fish, and start shooting. The light for the fisherman was usually half the power of those used to lit the fish, wouldn't always work flawless but it was pretty much under control. Anyway, big work. Tough, and easy to make mistakes, and mistakes I made, quite few many. Thus, the results in some of the photos were extremely rewarding and unique, hence, for as weird as it seem I will keep using my life-complication-combo trying to figure out how to make things roll easier.

Eventually, Lastolite seem to have heard my screams from the Maldives and put together a great gear : The Triflash. Strobist brought the news last week or so and I figured out is what I really need to buy in the nearest future (read, as soon as it is available). Is a triple flash bracket you can stick into your light stand and use with one, two or three flashes, as you like. As simple as that, great ideas don't need to be complicated anyway. Some more detailed info are available here http://www.lastolite.com/triflash.php

This is how my next boat lighting set up will look like, maybe if is very windy I will skip the umbrella but I'm sure this will make my life easier. Can't wait to try that.....

The light, the jaws and the studio photography addiction

What follows is all about being hooked by those small portable lights, that give you enormous creative possibilities.

We had some boring days in Madrid. Outside is snowing and inside (my chest to be precise), is cold. Darn cold. I mean, I have a cold that could slam a horse to the floor. Yeah right, for once that I have the chance to go out and photograph some beautiful white snow, I'm jailed into my own hose.

Well, to get the best out of the situation, after swallowing a couple of Ibuprofen pills, just to get back to life for a couple of hours, I start putting together the circus to start the light(n)ing session. One flash here, another one here below, one behind ... no, let me change that ... a tad higher and a tad closer and so on. The options and countless, the results can be numbered in thousands, but eventually, even for a complete dork like me something comes out.

Here, the main light (SB600 at 1/8 through umbrella) is on camera right, a tad higher than the jaw. This is placed on top of a translucent sheet with another SB600 lighting from below: this flash is set at 1/32.

For this take I didn't use anything else rather than the above mentioned lights. This is basically the outcome from the RAW image with just a bit of sharpening

In this second image we used a reflector on camera left to fill a bit the shadows. Still the outcome of the RAW image with a bit of sharpening

Eventually here we have an edited version of the second image, with a B&W conversion and a more menacing look.

Setting up the "studio" takes time and it can be a bit of a drag, especially if wife and daughter arrive home a tad too early than expected. Yet, once you start working is tough to quit. This is quite an addictive thing, and even more for somebody like me, totally new to the game. When I did this session I could only count on 2 SB600, now I have a third one and a Metz 54 and I think I'm getting closer to the proper minimalistic lighting bag.

Maldives, an image or two

I haven't wrote that much about my latest trip to the Maldives. It has been OK. Nothing spectacular but we had some decent jigging and nice popping as well.

Few images for you of this November's Safari, I will be back there in February and I hope I will have more stuff to show

This is my friend Albert showing a decent size Barracuda caught on a jig. The fish pulled hard and fooled me into thinking it was another beast. At the beginning we all said "Doogtooth" because the drag was screaming pretty loud and the line running fast, but the lack of stamina of the fish put our hopes down a bit. A nice fish nevertheless. Many people hate Barracuda and I think they're quite good fun critters

Eugeni in a tough situation, A GT took his lure and is heading back o the reef. The heavy drag settings are very tricky to use, especially when there's no gunwale to support your knees.

Snappers are always among my favourite fish to shoot. Then storm helped creating a bit more of atmosphere.

A bit of hard work near sunset. A small atoll in the distance reminds us we are in the Indian ocean, at the Maldives.

Another snapper in daylight. The red color in contrast with the blue sky really makes for a dramatic contrast. There's a main light on camera right, a Nikon SB600. I exposed for the sky and the flash filled the subject probably at 1/4 of power

The local band playing at night, around the campfire in a desert island

The studio craze

Thanks to an amazing flue I had last week, I managed to spend some time working on my brand new insanity: strobes!

This time I tried to do something related to my main occupation. Most of the time I shoot my daughter's teddy bear, some flowers, a tomato or an oil jar but this time I wanted to try some kind of product shot.

The result is more or less crappy. I don't know if I have screwed the lights, the background or what but I barely come to appreciate it. Thus, during this long photo session I managed to understand few more things about this though and challenging work. each and very day I pay more respect to the guys who are able to present us things in such great ways in the mags ads, and books.

This image has been shot with a strobe lighting the background (SB600), one main light on camera left around 45/60º through a soft umbrella.

This shot shows how the lack of a reflector darkens some areas in the lower part of the reel

This shot has been done with a reflector (camera right) and many of the shadows have come to live

Whatever the results I enjoy a lot what I do in my improvised studio. Is a great way to spend the cold winter.

Horse Power anyone?

I wonder if any of you guys has ever entered the engine room of a big boat. Not a huge oil tank or alike, just a big sport fishing boat for example. I did that last week-end, nosing around the twin engine room of my friend's Fernando 58ft Hatteras. The original diesels have been stripped out the belly of the vessel and replaced with two flaming new 1000hp Detroits. Now, these, for a profane like me are quite impressive, they probably are 4 feet tall and 6 or 7 foot long and must weight a ton or two, God knows. anyway, is not the technical stuff that interests me, is what I can do with those fine pieces of machinery and my Nikon with or without my strobes.

I have to admit I'm a flash fanatic at least as much I am a flash dork. No clue how to use them, yet I insist and dare to. This is a series of images of the same stuff, none of them really successful but I have a moment in this lazy Friday afternoon so I enjoy working a bit on the Blog. I have spent zero time in editing the raw images, these are the basic jpegs exactly how they came out of the camera, just reduced in size.

This is the dark view, quite futuristic of the whole thing. Like a spaceship... The flash commander don't work so well when there's heavy metal stuff in front of the strobe, hence only the right flash sparked a bit of light. a too high shutter speed and a not too open f-stop did the rest.

I wonder why this one came up so green, I shoot in cloudy WB and should have been warmer, but maybe this IS warmer, for the light I was using... No flash here, just available light at f3.2

Only one flash fired here, the one on the right. f5.6 sunny WB

Here we have both SB600 working, one is low on my right and the other one is on top of the white cabinet. There's a lot of reflecting and shining stuff here, the light is bouncing all over the place but hey, this is a dork at work, don't forget this. f5.6 sunny WB

A couple of bonus images, this one I don't have a clue of what it is. I put the flash on top of it to spread some light from above. Looks pretty average to me. f4.5 Sunny WB.

At least I know what this is. Flash still above but eventually who cares, is not a good take.

These shots have been taken with a Nikon D80 and Nikkor 10.5 Fisheye. It was darn hot down there. I know is a dirty job but somebody has to do it :-)